Hanging file folders, for use in storage units such as file cabinets, desk drawers, and the like (“office storage equipment”), are commonly found in modern offices and businesses. Such folders may be formed by a sheet of heavy material with a central horizontal fold which forms the folder's bottom and open sides. Folds are also typically provided in the file's top edges through which suspension bars or rods are movably or immovably fixed. The ends of these bars or rods are typically exposed and may be notched, enabling the file to hang on the top edges of office storage equipment, or hang on rails within office storage equipment, or hang on rails of a file frame inside office storage equipment. Such folders may have a series of spaced-apart slots adjacent the top to receive lugs of index tabs for labeling the contents of the folders. Exemplary index tabs may be constructed of flexible clear plastic and form a folded structure that includes a message holder portion in which a paper message-carrying insert can be placed, and a base portion which includes two lugs for mounting the tab into the slots of the slotted file folder.
It is not uncommon for users to be frustrated using manila file folders inside hanging files. One source of this frustration is the fact that a very common US manila file folder size has a tab that is about 9.5 inches from central fold to the top of the tab, which is about the same depth as a very common US hanging file folder. Consequently, the tabs are largely or entirely within the file folder, and text on the tab cannot be read without either opening the hanging file folder or sliding the manila folder out far enough to read the tab. Another source of frustration is the fact that often the rails inside office storage equipment, and thus hanging file folders suspended from those rails, are located very near to an upper edge defining a drawer opening in the office storage equipment. Consequently, even if manila folders are sized taller to extend over the top of hanging file folders, they are bent and folded each time the drawer is opened and closed. Before long, the tabs of such manila folders are folded over or even detached from the folder, rendering them useless.